FORT MYERS, Fla. – Early Sunday morning, 44 teams played in first round playoff games at the Perfect Game Underclass World Championship on fields at four current and former MLB spring training complexes. By late morning, the 22 winners of those first-round games were joined by 10 other teams that had played well enough during pool-play to receive a bye into the second round.
And by early evening, after a fourth straight day of sunshine, breezes that tempered the 90-degree heat and, most importantly, no rain, eight teams remained that would play on into Monday morning. It’s natural selection, Perfect Game style.
There were plenty of surprises throughout the day, of course, with four of the top-10 seeds that received those first round byes getting knocked out in either the second or third rounds.
The flip side of that, of course, is that six of those top-10 teams remain – and seven of the top-15 – including No. 1 Richmond Braves National (5-0-0); No. 2 Texas Stix (5-0-0); No. 4 East Cobb Astros (5-0-0); No. 7 Charlotte Megastars (5-0-0); No. 8 Virginia Cardinals (5-0-0) and No. 9 Scorpions 2016 Prime (5-0-0), the defacto defending tournament champion.
The interlopers are No. 15 Marucci Elite (6-0-0) and one real long-shot, No. 41 Elite Baseball Training-Chicago 2016 (5-0-1). Please click here for Monday’s complete schedule.
The Richmond Braves National earned the playoffs’ No. 1 seed after outscoring its three pool-play opponents by a combined 29-0, and continued to get outstanding pitching Sunday in 5-1 and 8-0 playoff wins over the Florida Hardballers in the second round TGBA Blue-Borcherding in the third round, respectively.
Right-hander Hunter Perdue, ranked No. 68 nationally in the class of 2017, pitched five, three-hit, shutout innings with three strikeouts in the win over the Hardballers. 2016 righty Zach Duncan answered with five, two-hit shutout innings with three strikeouts in the win over TGBA.
“Our 2016 and 2017 classes are real strong and a lot of our kids could come down (for this event),” Braves National head coach Tommy Mayers said Sunday. “It’s difficult sometimes getting out of school and doing all that for some of them but we were able to get the majority of the guys down here that we wanted to but, you know, it’s just tough competition.”
Team Georgia Baseball Academy (TGBA) Blue-Borcherding (5-0-1) earned the playoffs’ No. 13 seed and its game against the Richmond Braves National was its third of the day. It beat No. 52-seeded Diamond Jacks Super 16, 4-1, in the first round and escaped No. 17 Elite Squad 16u Prime, 5-4, in the second round.
“It’s gone far beyond this tournament for us,” head coach Jason Borcherding said of his team’s run into the sweet-16. “As an organization we’ve always been very fortunate to have a great group of kids – great group of kids, great group of families – and quite honestly we don’t always have the upper-tier talent that a lot of other programs have.
“The way that we’re successful is with our team cohesiveness and our ability to be unselfish.”
That is likely the recipe for success most of the final-eight at the PG WWBA Underclass World Championship likes to follow. Programs like the Richmond Braves and TGBA may differ in terms of a national profile but here they were, facing each other in the round-of-16 at a Perfect Game national championship event after overcoming steep odds.
“You’re fortunate, because there are a lot of good teams that didn’t even make it out of pool-play,” Mayers said of earning the No. 1 seed. “It’s a shootout down here because you play three quick games and then you’re right at it back-to-back, you’ve got to be fully loaded and it’s tough for anybody; you have one hiccup and you’re basically screwed.
“Our boys played good defense, our pitching was spectacular and the hitting has been coming around, and we took advantage of some other people’s mistakes.”
Speaking of his program, Borcherding said: “We want to come down and we want to compete against the best and we’re always in the mix. … We’ve just got really good team chemistry and they play hard for each other; they love each other and they care about each other … and it’s about the kids going out there and doing their job and they take a lot of pride in it.”
He continued: “One of the things that we’re looking for when we take kids into our program is we look for kids who like to compete. Kids that may be kind of under the radar, kind of diamonds in the rough to a certain extent that we really feel might be projectable that we can take and mold and continue to help them get better and take them to the next level.”
The PG WWBA Underclass World Championship has grown into a popular destination for college recruiters and, from that respect, Mayers acknowledges its importance as more and more high school juniors and sophomores make their college choices. He doesn’t necessarily agree with that trend but the thrill of competing – which will be on full display Monday – keeps him coming back.
“We’ve got good players and they want to play good competition so where ever that is where we want to go play, and whatever recruiting turn that takes for them, so be it,” he said. “I want to prepare them for college and that’s the key. When they step into whatever college they’re fortunate to go with, I want them to be able to contribute right away and be prepared to be a good teammate and to be ready.
“We’ve been doing this for years as an organization – we started out with Perfect Game when they basically began – so we’ve been coming down here for years; we love this trip.”